Wednesday, December 15, 2004

I'm not sure how we can create peace amongst a people bound and determined to kill

"A bomb exploded at the gate of one of Shia Islam's holiest shrines on Wednesday, killing seven people and wounding 31 others, including a top aide of Iraq's most influential Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, officials said. "

My only other observation is my memory that America went to extraordinary lengths to respect Iraqi religious shrines, a courtesy Iraqis clearly are not giving each other.
UPDATE: Rich made an excellent comment, so I felt it worthwhile to update this post with my response to him.
"Good point. I was getting sucked into the worldview presented by the American press. Incidentally, the book I mentioned in one of my posts (about the Spanish Influenza epidemic in 1918) presents the flip side of our “hostile to the war” press. Then, President Wilson, in a very short time, and with pretty-much enthusiastic support from most Americans, completely shut down freedom of the press. Everything about the war and the home front had to be positively stated, and people who spoke out against the war were imprisoned. That worked fine for the war effort (leaving aside little things like civil liberties), but turned out to be disastrous when the influenza started spreading. No paper felt safe enough to publish the obvious – that there was a dangerous infectious disease spreading through America, and that governments and individuals needed to take immediate action. With the government and the press spouting platitudes – “Everything is fine. We have the situation under control” – the situation spiraled wildly out of control, resulting in millions of deaths.
"Here, at least the press is free, and I wouldn’t want it any other way. I just wish most members of the press weren’t so reflexively anti-American in their outlook."